Evidence of meeting #49 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
And I'm obviously not asking you to tell me what the result was. I just don't know how you could have done an analysis, given what we heard from StatsCan today. Because of the way the reporting is done, they couldn't differentiate between victims who are adults and victims who are children. I don't know how you'd have been able to do it.
I may have missed something. That's really what I'm asking. Is it possible to do that assessment?
Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Well, to clarify in terms of the statistics we just heard about, we obviously have access to the same statistics that the committee has heard. We have access to older reports as well.
The committee heard that there is a difficulty for adult criminal court survey data in breaking down the number of general sexual assault offences that involve child victims as distinct from adult victims, and that's a challenge that I have little control over in terms of trying to provide better information to this committee.
However, as part of one of my undertakings from my last appearance, I did provide the committee with the report “Child and Youth Victims of Police-reported Violent Crime, 2008”. It was released in 2010. This is a document produced by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Vis-à-vis the three general sexual assault offences—sections 271, 272, and 273—they did provide a number here that broke it down, showing that 80% of the cases that proceeded involving child victims proceeded under those three general sexual assault offences.
I'm not able to provide any further breakdown to the committee, and neither is CCJS, but in terms of how many child victims there are, it does give some sense of, for example, the implications of proceeding under section 271. The minister made reference to that same statistic when he appeared.
With regard to the other statistics that CCJS just provided to the committee, when dealing with a child-specific offence, it's very easy to identify that this is clearly affecting a child, because you have an age criterion. The challenge from one of the questions was on how you get the age of the offender. We look at the number of offences—incidents reported—the number of offenders who are convicted of a particular offence, and perhaps what data exist in terms of the average length or the median for the different penalties or sentences that are imposed. We do look at that.
The committee could look at, for example, the presentation you had just before this, which is before you right now. In it you see the number of incidents reported by the different child-specific offences. That would give the committee an indication of what kind of change we have seen over that number of years and how many offenders are being charged or processed under these different offences. You have some parameters from that data, which we use as well.
Of course, federal corrections can look, as would provincial corrections, to their own inmate population and do calculations based on their own actual numbers, but that's not for me.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Do we know whether they have done that, province by province, on this bill? I think what I'm really asking is whether that information is shared with you by the provinces, if each province has done that?
Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
No. My answer before was that within the areas of federal responsibility, calculations of cost would be for those areas that are a federal responsibility—that is, federal corrections.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I understand that, but if Ontario, say, did the assessment based on this—
Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'm not aware if provinces have.
Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Sometimes it happens. There's no question that we've had opportunities in recent years to engage in discussions through existing FPT fora, but I'm not personally aware of issues having been identified on Bill C-54 through those FPT fora.
Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
It has been out since November, and we have had various FPT meetings.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Those are just questions.
By way of comment on this section, I think the problem we have is trying to assess this. Mr. Ménard made points earlier about the difficulty of taking a cookie-cutter approach, especially since all parties supported this legislation with the earlier mandatory minimums, including the Bloc at that time. The statistics we're seeing and the evidence you heard from just about all the witnesses say that these types of offences should result in jail time. The stats show that in fact, in the vast majority of cases, they do result in jail time.
However, the real issue—and this is really what it comes down to with regard to the psychologists who have spent their whole careers working on these files—is that it really is significant, and I think it's absolutely mandatory, that the sentence fit the individual. When you go with these solutions that try to fit everybody into one box, it just doesn't work.
Having said that, Mr. Chair, I'm obviously not going to be supporting these mandatory minimums in this case.
Conservative
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you.
There was reference made to cabinet confidences and Parliament. Parliament doesn't force cabinet to reveal cabinet confidences, for reasons that we all understand. It could, but it doesn't.
However, just the fact that a weather forecaster somewhere gives a weather report to the cabinet doesn't mean the weather report becomes a secret document. The data are there, and the information doesn't have to come from the cabinet.
I want to ask Mr. Dechert, who will try to speak for the government, if consultation was had with the provinces—whose provincial reformatories would bear the burden of this sixfold to sevenfold increase in the mandatory minimums on this section alone—and whether there was a workup on the additional incarceration costs that would be imposed on the provinces.
It's a simple question. I'll just ask it to him. I'm happy to have whatever answer it is—yes, no, or maybe.
Conservative
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Well, he's speaking for the government. I think he should answer. If he doesn't answer, then we don't have someone speaking for the government.
Conservative
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Okay, so I don't know why I'm being asked a question by Mr. Lee. I know Mr. Lee purports to be an expert in the rules of committee, so perhaps he could explain why it's appropriate to do so, given his vast 22-plus years of parliamentary knowledge, or why it's incumbent upon any other member of a committee to answer questions that one member may impose.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Well, at this point Ms. Morency is speaking for the government. She is a government official, but all throughout the history of Parliament, it is ministers who speak in Parliament for the government. In fact, your own government has made the point more than once, and in writing, that it is ministers who speak for the government, and not public officials.
We are deliberating passing, clause by clause, a government bill here, and if there is no one speaking for the government—
Conservative
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
If there is no one speaking for the government, then I don't have my ability to ask the question of the government. Earlier in this meeting I asked who was speaking for the government. I believe the responsibility was divided between Mr. Dechert and Mr. Petit, so I simply asked the question of the person I believed was representing the government.
If there is nobody speaking for the government here beyond Ms. Morency, then let the record show that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Let's be fair. I believe what Mr. Petit and Mr. Dechert indicated was that with respect to this legislation, the position on each of these clauses is being articulated by those two individuals. I don't believe there is anything to compel Mr. Dechert to answer questions. I don't believe he is here representing the minister in the sense that he is a direct conduit to cabinet.
Ms. Morency correctly stated that she was in no position to disclose cabinet confidences, and I think we all understand why that is the case. I think we want to respect that.
I want to go to Mr. Murphy; you have a question.
Go ahead, Mr. Dechert.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
I just think it's worth noting, and anyone watching should note, that the Minister of Justice was in fact before this committee on this bill, and Mr. Lee had an opportunity to ask him any questions he wished.
Further, the information provided by Statistics Canada earlier today noted on page 13 that there was a significant increase in custodial sentences for people convicted of child sexual offences following the enactment in 2005 of mandatory minimum penalties under the previous government, as Ms. Jennings pointed out earlier.
I wonder whether perhaps they could provide the information on what the additional cost of that was. Perhaps they could also provide the committee with the answer to the question as to whether or not they supplied that information at the time their legislation was being debated in Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
I think what we want to do is get back to the clause at hand.
Mr. Murphy, it's your turn.